Monday, December 3, 2012

Diary of a Mad Housewife (1970)

New York director Frank
Perry’s films tended toward pretentiousness, but amid his arty flourishes he
demonstrated a fine gift for guiding performances, especially by actresses.
Thus, it’s no surprise that his most widely admired film, Diary of a Mad Housewife, is virtually a one-woman show for leading
lady Carrie Snodgress. With Perry’s sympathetic but unflinching camera studying
every nuance of her suffering, Snodgress plays Tina Balser, the
underappreciated spouse of successful young attorney Jonathan Balser (Richard
Benjamin). Jonathan is an asshole of the first order, a name-dropping
narcissist obsessed with professional and social advancement; he alternately
treats Tina as a sex toy, a shrink, a slave, a sounding board, and a subject
for psychological abuse. In the film’s arresting opening scenes, Perry and
screenwriter Eleanor Perry (the director’s then-wife) succinctly illustrate
every aspect of the Balsers’ suffocating lifestyle—we’re so primed for Tina’s
escape from Jonathan’s oppression that when she meets a potential partner for
an adulterous tryst, it feels like a triumphant moment.

Alas, Tina’s would-be paramour, writer George Prager (Frank Langella), is merely a different breed of
asshole. One of those smug swingers who justifies his callous behavior with
fancy language about surmounting bourgeois hang-ups, George treats Tina
tenderly when they’re in bed, and abysmally when they’re not. The journey of
the movie is Tina’s quest for some kind of validation—whether it’s George
complimenting her lovemaking or Jonathan recognizing the work she invests
keeping their household afloat—because she’s beyond desperate for evidence proving her life means something. The fascinating quality of Diary of a Mad Housewife is that Tina never really snaps, which
would have been the predictable path for the story to follow; instead, even
when Jonathan belittles her in front of their two impressionable daughters,
Tina barks but doesn’t bite.

Emboldened by her adultery, however, she relishes keeping a secret from her schmuck spouse, and interesting questions get raised
about how deeply Tina savors the creature comforts Jonathan’s success provides—has she been co-opted by the status-symbol system that’s oppressing her?

Benjamin
is terrific here, transforming obsequiousness into an art form, and Langella,
in his first feature, mostly surmounts the overwritten extremes of his role.
However, since she’s in nearly every scene, it’s all about Snodgress, who came
virtually out of nowhere to score in this movie—her previous screen credits
comprised a handful of minor guest shots on television. Snodgress’ relatable
vulnerability earned the actress a Golden Globe award and an Oscar nomination. Following a second 1970 feature and a 1971 telefilm, though, Snodgress left
Hollywood for a long romance with rock legend Neil Young. She didn’t return to
movies until 1978’s The Fury, the
project that began her transition from leading roles to minor character roles.